Thanksgiving

"Oh that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness." Psalm 107: 8-9

O Lord that lends me life,
Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.
~William Shakespeare

Our group was small this year. We missed the rest of the family, but we still had a grand time together. We read from several Psalms before settling down to the business of feasting.
Tony and Rocky, after dinner.

Mostly Mona

There were several steps between the picture above and this one below. She's clearly very pleased with herself and her success. Playing on Daddy's tummy. Such a little sweetie!Lewis and Inge spent hours playing on the computer...typing and drawing. I believe the picture on the computer here was "drawn" by Inge.
And here she is, drawing for real.

Claire and Peter and the children were here again last week for Nelly's long-awaited surgery at the Shriner's Hospital. Here is Nelly, the night before her surgery, dressed up in a hat which the hospital gave her (they showered her with presents!), her pajama top, and a new skirt I just finished making her (Inge and Mona will have matching ones, one of these days).

This very adorable, very round little lamb was a gift from Renee. This is still the night before surgery. The next morning, Peter and Claire and Nelly left the house at about 5:00 a.m. to head over to the hospital.

It was my delightful privilege to care for the rest of the children while P, C, & M were gone, and they were sweethearts, all 3 of them! Such fun to take care of. Here is Inge drawing, one of her favorite pastimes.

And Lewis, before he had a chance to make a face at the camera :-)

"All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!"

We got to go to the hospital that night to see Nelly, but I didn't take my camera along, so don't have any pictures of that. Here she is, back home again. I love this picture.

She has a very unique way of whistling. She sticks her tongue in her lower lip, purses her lips, and blows. None of us can figure out how in the world that produces a whistle, but it does. Inge taught her; apparently, Inge first learned to whistle this way, too.

Reading a story with Daddy before bed.

They planned to leave on Saturday, so I grabbed some pictures of the children before they got in the car. I was appalled after they left to discover that I hadn't taken any 'single' pictures of our adorable little Mona. Thankfully, they didn't get too far down the road before circumstances encouraged them to turn around and come back. They decided to stay over the weekend and leave today. I was thrilled, of course, for more reasons than one. I took the opportunity to grab the missed pictures of Mona, which I will try to post soon.



This is probably my favorite picture of the lot. This was just before they left the first time. We sat them down on the porch and Peter began to entertain them with all kinds of funny antics so that I could snap some pictures....but my card was full and this ended up being the only one I got.